Wisconsin: A teenage boy who shot two students outside a Wisconsin high school prom before being killed by police was bullied in school and had a fascination with weapons, former classmates told local media.
Jakob Wagner, 18, was teased while attending Antigo High School, about 180 miles (290 km) north of Milwaukee, because of his bad hygiene, Emily Fisher, a 19-year-old former classmate, told the Wausau Daily Herald. “He was bullied a lot,” she said.
Fisher also told the newspaper that Wagner made replicas of guns and weapons in art class and frequently discussed guns.
“Ever since we were younger, he was one of the kids you kind of watched out for,” Fisher said. “If someone was going to shoot the school, we thought it was going to be him.”
School officials were not immediately available for comment.
On Facebook, a friend said Wagner volunteered for the school’s marching band and loved “drawing, his family, music, band, art and school.”
Kaitie Arrowood, another former student, told a CBS affiliate in Green Bay that many students at the school knew Wagner was bullied.
“We did kind of bond because we were bullied by a lot of the same people and kind of in the same ways,” she said.
At around 11 p.m. on Saturday, Wagner arrived at the school on a bicycle and shot two unidentified students - a male and a female - with a rifle as they exited the building where about 200 couples were attending a prom, the Antigo Police Department said in a statement.
A police officer then shot Wagner, who later died of his injuries at a local hospital, it said.
The actions taken by police prevented “a major tragedy,” the school said in a statement.
The wounded female was treated for a gunshot wound at a hospital and released, while the male underwent surgery for non-life threatening injuries.
Antigo Police Chief Eric Roller said in a news conference that investigators were trying to determine Wagner’s motive and how he got the rifle.
“We are going to try to find out as many answers as possible,” Roller said. He added that police had searched Wagner’s home.
